The CFL’s regular season attendance increased modestly this year, growing by 1.8 percent from 22,393 fans per game in 2023 to 22,795 fans per game in 2024.
The largest surge came in Montreal where the Alouettes saw their attendance rise from an average of 17,670 to 21,302, a year-over-year increase of 20.6 percent. The team sold out four of its nine regular season games at Percival Molson Stadium, which has the league’s smallest capacity at 23,035. Montreal will host the East Final for the first time since 2012 next month, giving them a chance to sell out for a fifth time this year.
The sharpest decline came in Edmonton where attendance dropped from 24,774 to 20,499, a 17.3 percent decrease year-over-year. This number should be taken with a grain of salt, however, as the team’s gate revenue plummeted by 21.7 percent from 2022 to 2023 despite attendance rising by 4.1 percent, which is believed to have occurred due to increased distribution of free tickets. With fewer free tickets presumably being given out in 2024, attendance likely shrunk by less than 17.3 percent.
The B.C. Lions (15.8 percent), Toronto Argonauts (5.7 percent), and Winnipeg Blue Bombers (2.5 percent) also saw notable increases, while the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (3.8 percent) experienced a notable decrease.
Attendance remained relatively flat across the league’s other three teams, including the Ottawa Redblacks (up 0.1 percent), Saskatchewan Roughriders (up 0.1 percent), and Calgary Stampeders (down 0.7 percent).
On the whole, this was the CFL’s best-attended season since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, though ticket sales remain slightly 0.6 percent below pre-pandemic levels as the league averaged attendance of 22,928 in 2019.
Readers are reminded that attendance figures are self-reported by teams across the league and cannot be independently verified.
2024 CFL attendance averages
Winnipeg Blue Bombers, 31,196
Saskatchewan Roughriders, 27,684
B.C. Lions, 26,883
Hamilton Tiger-Cats, 22,001
Calgary Stampeders, 21,541
Montreal Alouettes, 21,302
Edmonton Elks, 20,499
Ottawa Redblacks, 18,925
Toronto Argonauts, 15,127
Editor’s note: the original version of this article slightly under-reported attendance in Vancouver. It has since been corrected.
